Why does (boolean ^ int > 0) work?

Question

When you try to do something like this:

if (true ^ 1) {   //do something } 

the compiler reasonably says that operator ^ is not defined for argument types boolean and int. But if you use it like this:

if (true ^ 1 > 0) {   //do something } 

the code compiles (for Java 8 at least) and flawlessly works. Basically these operations:

false ^ -1 > 0  false ^ 1 > 0 true ^ -1 > 0 true ^ 1 > 0 

Act like a valid logical XOR:

     | ^ -----+--  F F | F  F T | T  T F | T  T T | F 

Could anybody please explain what happens under the hood?

Answer 1

It's simple: > has higher precedence than ^, so

if (true ^ 1 > 0) { 

is equivalent to

if (true ^ (1 > 0)) { 

which is equivalent to

if (true ^ true) 

... which is just logical XOR.

I would never write code like this, mind you. I would be surprised to see an example which couldn't be written more clearly in a different way.